>> announcer: this is "nightly business repor with tyler mathisen deal breaker? at&t's proposed mega acquisition of time warner just hit a major snag. and it came from the justice department. doing the math. the gop's tax bill numbers don't add up. and that could prove to be a major obstacle. open enrollment. when choosing your benefits for next year, you don't want to make any costly mistakes. those stories and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, good evening, everyone. welcome. i'm sue herera. tyler mathisen is off tonight. an $85 billion merger hangs in the balance. at&t has reportedly been told by theartment of justice that it needs to sell time warner's

group of cable channels that includes cnn to get that deal approved. that could prove to be a big stumbling block to a transformative deal that was first announced more than a year ago. shares of time warner were pushed lower on the news but shares of at&t were higher. julia boorstin takes a look at the latest twist in this proposed tie-up. >> reporter: the justice department has reportedly called on at&t and time warner to divest turner broadcasting including cnn or to sell directv. in order to secure approval for the deal, the doj issuing the following statement, saying, quote, the department is committed to carrying out its duties in accordance with the laws and the facts. beyond that, the department does not comment on any pending investigation. at&t's ceo randall stevenson says, quote, throughout this process i've never offered to sell cnn and i have no intention of doing so. the report comes after at&t's cfo john stevens said the timing

of the deal is now uncertain. a reversal after the company said last month that the deal was still on track to close by the end of this year. steven s as well as ceo randall stephenson have rejected that. >> to have at the 11th hour this development is troubling. if it's a highly politicized ansaction or development, we now see the development of the trump effect. >> reporter: now investors are watching to see what will transpire and what this could mean for other media deals in the works such as the pending sinclair tribune deal. i'm julia boorstin in los angeles. on wall street, stocks inched higher. the small gains were enough to send the m indexes to new highs. the world's most valuable publicly traded company, apple, hit a major milestone. its market cap closed above $900

billion for the first time ever. here is a look at the closing numbers. the dow jones industrial average six points to 23,563. the nasdaq added 21. and the s&p 500 was up three. since the election of donald trump one year ago, the s&p 500 risen 20%. cnbc's bob pisani takes a look. >> reporter: president trump has often claimed credit for the roughly 20% gain in the market since then. how true is that? the short answer is, he should get partial cr partial credit i the perception that tax cuts will add to earnings and trump is part of the more business friendly environment. after the election the market came to believe that a combination of tax cuts, infrastructure spending, and regulator reform would give an added boost to profits. the s&p rose 6% in the first month after trump's electi more important since then,

record corporate earnings. even more importantly, the market believes the record earnings will continue for the next few quarters. second, global growth has returned. many countries have returned to owth after years of stagnation. as a result, the u.s. stock market is up 20% since trump's election. but the whole world is up 20%, including hong kong, south korea, india, japan, germany. finally there's a relatively benign federal reserve. no reason incoming jay powell will mark a radical departure. bottom lin give the president some credit, at most he can claim responsibility for 25% of the rally. bob pisani, "nightly business re at the new york stock exchange. the republican tax plan is running into some obstacles. ylan mui is in washington. >> reporter: the republicans are race to go make progress on tax reform before the week is out.

in the house, members are facing tough math as the cost of their plan rises to $1.7 trillion over a decade, according to the congressional budget office. and that would violate the special rules that republicans want to use to fast track this legislation. congressman mark walker of north carolina, whs the influential republican study committee, says he's confident this bill will get passed and that his members feel a sense of urgency especially after the democrats' big win last night. >> it's a wake-up call for republicans not to straddle the fence on these issues. if you look at the people who supported donaltrump, it was because he was very clear on his issue, when it comes to repealing obamacare, when it comes to delivering on tax reform, infrastructure, these are things that republicans must lead on and not be passe in. >> reporter: making the numbers work is even harder in the senate. the plan can't cost more than $1.5 trillion over ten years,

and it can'tdd to the deficit in the years after that. so there's still a lot of debate over whether republicans will be able to lower the corporate rate to 20% immediately and permanently. democratic senator chuck schumer slammed reports that this bill would get rid of the very popular state and local tax deduction. >> we are saying to our republican colleagues, if you continue to try and eliminate the state and local deduction, you're going to kill suburban legislators who are already in trouble because the suburbs don't seem to like donald trump. so we say to our republican friends on this tax bill, as clint eastwood said, want to pass this tax bill? you want to hurt the suburbs? make. make our day. >> reporter: democrats are proposing linking the corporate tax rate to worker wages.

if households don't get the $4,000 pay raise republicans have promised, the corporate rate would jump back up to 35%. tomorrow is an important mile markeror republicans. the house ways and means committee is set to vote on its version of the tax bill. and the senate finance committee will release its own plan as well. then it's a sprint to get it to the president's desk by christmas. for "nightly business report," i'm ylan mui in washington. jes bush joins us now on how it could play out in the days and weeks ahead, a partner with the washington update. jess, nice to see you again. nice to see you, sue. >> handicap this all, ylan laid it out beautifully. do you think they'll be able to do it? what are the objestacles as you see them? >> she certainly laid it out perfectly. the election results from yesterday is a momentum play

towards getting something done yet this week. butou can't deny the numbers. the numbers state that it must not exceed $1.5 trillion over that ten-year mark and right now the cbo is scoring it higher than that. they're going to have to some changes. in addition to that, we anticipate the senate plan coming out tomorrow. and early reports are that there are going to be some pretty significant differences between the house and the senate plan. which will have to be reconciled. >> how much more complicated does that make this whole process? >> well, it certainly does. you would think that the gang of six, after working on this for nine months, would have had tim bills came out of committee, but it doesn't appear to be the case. that is concerning for the republicans, that ther is disparity in those two bills, obviously those have to be reconciled before it can hit the president's desk for signing. >> the election results of yesterday, does that give momentum to one side or the other in this whole process, or not? >> i think short term, as i mentioned, it's a momentum for

the republicans to say, a wake-up call to try to t something done. obviously they were feeling a tremendous amount of pressure anyway. now, the democrats certainly should celebrate the results of last night but they need to put that in perspective as to what that really meant last night. they won the governor's office in a blue state, in a purple state that's been huing more towards blue anyway. a big eveng for the democrats, but i'm not necessarily putting that forward to 2018. >> what about the market and its reaction to it? the senate plan is going to come out, then they have to reconcile. there are going to be differences. are you anticipating increased volatility in the market as that reconciliation process goes through? or perhaps not? >> oh, i think definitely, sue, there will be. any time you're doing a large piece of legislation, and certainly tax reform is a huge piece of legislation, that bill will go through a period ofife and death throughout that process. that in essence means more volatility in the marketplace.

>> which means we'll be talking to you again soon. jess, thank you very much. >> i look forward to it. >> i do too. meantime, the trump administration announced new business and travel rules for cuba. the white house says the rules are designed to steer business away from the cuban military and intelligence services, and to the cuban private sector. the rus also make it harder for americans to travel independently to cuba. trump arrived in china, the main stop in his first official trip to asia. the u.s./china economic relationship at the top of the agenda, of course. but so is the still-developing personal relationship between the leaders of the world's two largest economies. eunice yoon is in beij >> reporter: the dinner at the forbidden city is just one way the chinese hope will make president trump feel a little bit more special compared to previous presidents. today, the first families tour

the forbidden city. they had afternoon tea and watched a performance of opera in a visit that the u.s. ambassador said would be personal. despite the important agenda to talk about north korea and trade, the chinese state media was focused on the intimate relationship between president xi and president trump. president trump showed president xi a video of his granddaughter reciting chinese songs and poems. and president xi, according to the state press, said her performance was an "a" plus. the chinese media has been upbeat about president trump's visit, stressing the importance of findingommon ground, including on trade. at a signing ceremony today, u.s. commerce secretary wilbur ross said that the two presidents would look to narrow the u.s. trade deficit, inking deals worth $9 billion. china retailer jd.com pledged to buy american beef. the vice premier said the deals would contribute overall to

u.s./china stability. president trump's trip is stirring up debate on chinese social media with many people eager to see if he's going to tweet, since twitter is blocked in china. for "nightly business report," i'm eunice yoon in beijing. still ahead, now is the time to make some very important personal finance decision. .nd you don't want to make any

billionaire investor carl icahn is under investigation. he has been subpoenaed on his role on a federal biofuels program for the trump administration. he advocated a change that would have benefitted a company that he holds a stake in. icahn has argued in the past he is acting in the interests of energy security. he stepped down from his advisory role in august. two data breaches in recent memory were the subct of a contentious hearing on capitol hill. the current and former ceos of equifax testified as did the former ceo of yahoo!. they started off apologizing. but that wasn't enough for some lawmakers. aditi ro >> reporter: former yahoo! ceo melissa meyer took the hot seat today, under subpoena, answering questions from the senate

commerce committee about the company's data breaches. >> yahoo! is the victim of criminal state sponsored attacks on its systems resulting in the theft of certain user information. >> reporter: she started with an apology for the 2013 breach that involved 3 billion or virtually all of the company' users. >> as ceo, these thefts occurred during my tenure. and i want to sincerely apologize to each and every one of our users. >> reporter: meyer, who testified before the committee alongside equifax's current and former ceos, said yahoo! learned about the 2013 breach last year. that russian agents were behind the attack but questions about how it happened still remain. >> to this day we, as i understand it, still have not been able to identify the intrusion that led to that theft. which is to say we have received files from law enforcement that contained yahoo! data. we verified that it came from yahoo!. you don't exactly understand how

the act was perpetrated. >> reporte executives faced a tough grilling from lawmakers who prd them on how the companies are more secure after the hack. >> yes-or-no question. does the data remain unencrypted? >> it has been reviewed. >> yes or no. >> i don't know at this stage. >> you don't know if -- this is the reason why it was breached; is that correct? >> there's -- >> this data was unencrypted. >> encryption is one form of defense. we have several forms of defense in place now that can prevent this to happen. >> reporter: the hearing was just the latest of a handful of congressional panels involving equifax, which is grappling with a breach involving 145 million americans, while all the executives talked about measures taken to improve security, meyer acknowledged with the rise of state sponsored hackers, no company >> we describe this as an arms

race. hackers become ever more sophisticated and we have to become sophisticated in turn. >> would you have predicted a breach before it occurred? would you expect a breach? i as answer so that is no or you would have been doing something more. >> we did not calculate perctages and/or predict a breach. we too significant efforts and investment to increase our security. >> reporte brought up their own suggestions, including using encryption and digital identity identification measures. for "nightly business report," i'm aditi roy, san frsco. humana says the return of a 3% industrywide tax would cause earnings in 2018 to fall below the company's initial target range. the company, which reported better than expected earnings, said it would cut nearly 6% of its workforce through job cuts and early retirement programs. shares were off 5% to$243.48.

regeneron said stronger demand for its new eczema drug helped profits rise. sales rose and topped estimates. shares rose more than 2.5% to $415.17. conoco phillips saidt would spend $5.5 billion annually over the next three years on capital projects but only if oil prices remain above $50 a barrel. the spending forecast was above analysts' expectations. the oil and natural gas producer also said it created a plan to weather any oil pric >> we tried to put a plan in place across all the market prices, to participate in the upside. we took the market out of our conversation. we're trying to embrace volatility. we think you need to work below 50 and even $40 a barrel and capture the upside as you go to 60 and $70 a barrel. if the prices go to 60, we'll

grow even more to take up incremental demand. >> the shares were fractionally higher t$53.52. after the bell, 21st century fox reported revenue that topped expectations while its profits were in line with estimates. the media giant says results were helped by higher ad sales and an increase in cable programming revenue. shares were initially higher in the extended session. they also finished the regular day up 1% to $28.09. open enrollment for health care benefits is here. and for some, it could be costly, according to an aflac survey. more than half employees apparently found bad choices cost them $750 a year or roughly $62 a month. we have douglas bonaparte with us with some tips to help you avoid those mistakes. he's financial planner and president of bona fide wealth. nice to have you, doug. >> good to see you again. >> what's the biggest mistake

people make at open enrollment? >> it's often the obvious one, that's forgetting to enroll. letting the window slip by is probably the biggest critical error that i see people make. >> and how frequent is that, do you think? >> well, i would say that the vast majority of people aren't missing out on this. it's too important to their lives. you know, we're talking about your medical insurance, we're talking about life insurance, disability insurance, benefits like that. if you asked me what the biggest error would be, if life got the best of you and you simply didn't enroll in benefits. >> we all live busy lives and the time slips by. >> sure. >> with most plans there are different things you can elect in terms of putting money aside to fund your benefits and things like that. do people generally do that correctly or not? >> unfortunately they don't. and what really needs to be done to make sure that you get a proper estimate of how to fund various plans, whether it be a

health care savings account or a flexible savin account where you can put money from your paycheck pretax, is not doing a decent job of estimating what their medical expenses are going to be, or dependent care expenses in some cases are going to be in the preceding year. that's done by looking back at the year prior to see, what did i spend and what might change in the year to follow. >> had what about people who s, and it's an option in many plans, you click on "keep what i have." is that a good idea or not? >> if you had a good year and used your benefits wisely, it's going to keep you out of harm's way. but this is the time you should reflect on the year you had and make adjustments. you don't want to leave money on the table in the form of tax savings. if you're expting another child or expecting to have surgery in 2018, you might want to modify your benefits, assuming you didn't have those items on your list in 2017.

>> or perhaps the plan its has changed and you're just checking it off, it might not be the same plan. >> that's a great point. >> had an abo about insurance? there are various different types of insurance elections that you can make. but you don't really get a chance to look at the policy itself. >> yeah, if you dig deep enough, you can find the specific policy and coverages. and i would always encourage anybody to dig as deep as they can to see what it is that they're purchasing through their benefits. but i thinkhat makes it complicated is we're not just talking about one type of insurance policy. we have your hea life insurance, we have disability insurance. we have three forms of insurance that you really want to get right. >> indeed we do. okay, thank you, doug, nice to have you here. >> thank you. >> douglas bonaparte with bona fide wealth. coming up, amazon's latest twist on convenience is being

sears is selling up to 140 stores to help fund its pension obligations. the department store is facing mounting losses and declining sales. the company is expected to use the proceeds from the sale to shore up its pension plan that still supports about 100,000 people. sears has already announced the closures of 400 stores this year. it also reported a 17% drop in same store sales. the stock fell in trading today. target plans to close a dozen underperforming stores. the company says the closures will take place in michigan, florida, illinois, and texas. it comes as the retailer expands

its portfolio smaller format stores which the company says are more profitable. amazon is viewed as one of the biggest threats to retail. but now the online retailer wants to literally open the door to a new type of service -- delivery. not just to your doorstep but directly into your home. deirdre bosa put it to the test. >> reporter: jennifer is a blogger and works aull-time job at ernst & young. she's got a busy schedule and doesn't have time to baby-sit packages. so she jumped at the opportunity to test out amazon's new home delivery system that lets the courier enter her house and place her packages right inside her home. she was just one of three amazon customers that goto try the service in advance. so far she's found it a convenient way to monitor her deliveries and make sure they get to her. >> so i never take my keys out of my purse at this point. my car unlocks with a touch of the button. same thing with amazon key, i'm

able to unlock my door with my code, i'm able to lock my door with the push of one but the and it's integrated and seamless. >> reporter: amazon key is now available in 37 cities. you need an amazon cloud cam and a smart lock. the kit starts at $250. the stakes are high. bad experiences could damage the company's reputation and open it up to legal issues. but if it works, amazon could be layi the groundwork for more sales and home services and take command of the last inch of delivery while most retailers are trying to control the cost of the last and most expensive mile of the supply chain. here is how amazon key works. the courier approaches the door and knocks or rings the doorbell to check if anyone ishome. he then scans the packages. once amazon verifies he's at the right place, the door unlocks. the camera inside captures the entire thing. no access codes or keys are ever provided to the driver.

beyond package delivery, users can use amazon key to set codes for friends and family to get inside. or they can soon set special access codes for dog walkers for cleaning services. the system is supposed to make our lives easier but does come with potential issues like pets escaping, accidents, or even the potential to let thieves or worse into your home. amazon suggests pets be left outside or cordoned off in a room to prevent such issues. amaz says the customer is the only one who sees the video that the camera is recording. >> i am concerned about video. at the same time it's so much easier to pick a lock that you purchase at home depot or lowe's and pick it with a couple of tools versus trying to hack the amazon key system. >> reporter: ultimately amazon is betting convenience will outweigh those concerns and

others. for "nightly business report," i' deirdre bosa in san francisco. finally tonight, the top places to retire. and they might not be where you think. pittsburgh tops the list with its affordable cost of living. next is the boston area, ranking high in health care. los angeles is number three which scored high in the things to do category. traditional retirement areas like the miami/ft. lauderdale region were rated 30th. but still a beautiful place. i'm sue herera. thanks for watching. that's "nightly business report" for tonight. we'll see you tomorrow. have a g

>> this is "bbc world news america." funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, and kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. >> planning a vacation escape that is relaxing, inviting, and exciting is a lot easier than you think. you can find it here in aruba. families, couples, and friends can all find their escape on the island with warm, sunny days, cooling trade wi a